Ryden Oneshots

Whiskey Lullaby

.:. Rating : NC-17 .:.
*warning: this contains incest and I don't like incest but this is actually really cute despite it oops also contains some abuse*

The fight starts like all their fights, with their father downing half a bottle of whiskey as the night wears on, their mother fingering her rosary and mumbling prayers again and again. Ryan's skin itches with the need to run, aching with the memory of faded bruises and healed cuts, but Brendon, because he is Brendon, starts to bristle. If Ryan's honest, Brendon starts it. Their father screams and throws the bottle, glass shattering on the kitchen floor in spray of booze and shards. Their mother hunches over, rocking and mumbling, and Ryan goes still, arms crossed tight over his chest. Brendon, though, after fourteen fucking years Brendon still can't keep his mouth shut, and he screams back, screams and begins something he can't win; something he's never won.

Their father starts hitting him, one hand on Brendon's shoulder, steadying him almost, keeping him standing upright, the other balled in a fist, punching into Brendon's stomach. Brendon's stoic through the first blow, through the second, but by the third, tears are prickling out of the corners of his eyes, and if Ryan could move, he would be clawing Ross Sr.'s eyes out. He looks at their mother. Stop him, Ryan thinks, breath coming hard and painful in his chest. Stop. Him. She doesn't. She never has. She lets out a mumbled Hail Mary, hand tight on his wrist.

Their father's fist catches Brendon's ribs and he breaks, letting out a strangled cry and Ryan shrugs her off, taking a step forward. He can't help himself.

Maybe it lasts for a moment, maybe for another hundred years, Ryan can't tell, but eventually their father lets go and Brendon crumples to the floor. He staggers away, toward the living room, where there's another dozen fucking bottles of booze lined up on the shelf. Ryan drops down next to Brendon and pulls him up, heart thudding hard and awful in his chest. "It's okay," Ryan whispers and Brendon whimpers at the sound of his voice. Ryan half carries Brendon up to their bedroom because he can barely stand up for himself. He manages to smile a little though, when Ryan wraps his free arm around his shoulders. He's coughing by the time they get all the way up the stairs.

"Are you okay?" Ryan asks, easing Brendon down on his bed. "Brendon, Bren, are you okay?" Brendon coughs and hunches over, shaking his head. "Okay, I'm fine. I'm okay." He even manages another smile, and this one claws at Ryan's heart because it's so beautiful. "Bren, you can't -- " Brendon shakes his head, because they've had this conversation a hundred times -- a thousand times, and Brendon can't stop, no matter how many times Ryan asks him to. "Brendon, please. I can't. I can't watch him hurt you like that anymore. I can't."

Brendon circles his arm around Ryan's neck, fingers splayed around the back of his skull and shakes his head. "Ryan, I just, it's fine." The kiss against his forehead isn't unexpected and Ryan lets out a shaky breathe, fear and regret and deep, cold rage clawing away at his insides.

"It's not," he exhales, "Bren, it's not." Brendon snuggles in closer, the tip of his nose running alongside Ryan's neck, and even that isn't unusual. Brendon is the more tactile of the two of them, but that doesn't mean that Ryan has ever or would ever shy away from his touch. "I wish," he whispers, and something clenches hard in Ryan's stomach. "You wish what, Bren?"

Brendon huffs out a broken chuckle. "I wish I could hit back."

Ryan moves up to sit beside him, pulls him closer so Brendon's half on his lap and this time, God, he tells himself he didn't see the kiss coming, tells himself there's was no way he could stopped it, stopped this thing for beginning, but that's a lie. He sees Brendon's head tilt and feels his body shift and, God help him, leans into the kiss and savors it.

Ryan kisses back. Ryan tips Brendon's head all light and easy and soft, because Brendon's been hurt far too much tonight, but he opens his mouth under the onslaught of Ryan's tongue, moaning a little. Fuck, Ryan is glad the door locks. The panic comes crashing in a moment later, the combined cadences of their parents' words; their father screaming that they're both mistakes and their mother condemning them for the common sins of all children. Brendon splays his fingers on Ryan's hip and sighs, shaking, pressing closer. "I need you."